Gmail Wants To Simplify How Companies Send E2E Encrypted Emails 

For its 21st birthday, Gmail wants to make sending end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) emails much easier for companies in regulated industries.

The goal is to “enable enterprise users to send E2EE messages to any user on any email inbox with just a few clicks.” Previously, this would require “significant IT resources, due to the complexity of S/MIME [Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions] and proprietary solutions”:

IT teams need to acquire and manage certificates and deploy them to each user, resulting in additional efforts and costs. And end users have to figure out whether they and the recipient have S/MIME configured (few do) and then go through the hassle of exchanging certificates before the encrypted emails can be exchanged

To enable this, companies need Client Side Encryption (CSE) on their supported Workspace Enterprise Plus tier with the Assured Controls add-on.

The emails are protected using encryption keys controlled by the customer and not available to Google servers, providing enhanced data privacy and security.

Once set-up, all end users need to do is tap a lock icon when composing a new email, with the window turning blue. 

If the recipient is a personal or enterprise Gmail user, the encrypted “email is automatically decrypted in the recipient’s inbox, and the recipient can use Gmail in a familiar way.”

However, if they’re using another email service, they will get a link to “view the E2EE email in a restricted version of Gmail.” This “guest Google Workspace account” lets them view and reply.

Companies can sign-up for beta access (“send E2EE emails to Gmail users in your own organization“) starting today. This will expand to sending “E2EE emails to any Gmail inbox” in the coming weeks. Later this year, any email inbox (via link/invite) will be possible. 

Google is also making several Gmail features generally available today: Classification labels, CSE default mode, Data loss prevention (DLP), and a new threat protection AI model.

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